


WE’RE ALL JUST SONGS IN THE END. IF WE ARE LUCKY:  JENNY OF OLDSTONES AND THE PRINCE OF DRAGONFLIES

by butterfliesdragons



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-16
Updated: 2018-08-16
Packaged: 2019-06-28 02:51:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15698628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/butterfliesdragons/pseuds/butterfliesdragons
Summary: My first Jon x Sansa meta post originally posted on Tumblr on Oct 11th, 2016





	WE’RE ALL JUST SONGS IN THE END. IF WE ARE LUCKY:  JENNY OF OLDSTONES AND THE PRINCE OF DRAGONFLIES

 

Reading this article: [Sansa Stark’s Fashion Evolution Through ‘Game Of Thrones’ And How Her Wardrobe Mirrors Her Character](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bustle.com%2Farticles%2F85163-sansa-starks-fashion-evolution-through-game-of-thrones-and-how-her-wardrobe-mirrors-her-character&t=YTQxZTc3N2YyMzIxMjYyNDgyNDIyODRhM2ZjOGE4Nzc1MGUwNThkOCwycnVRa3VXag%3D%3D&b=t%3AqOp2V-Aompakif6TKfPSaA&p=https%3A%2F%2Fbutterflies-dragons.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F151643925209%2Fwere-all-just-songs-in-the-end-if-we-are-lucky&m=1), the part about Sansa’s dragonfly, wings, and butterfly symbolisms got my attention:

> _[…] when Sansa’s dragonfly, wings, and butterfly symbolisms are born.[Game of Thrones embroidery](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.hollywoodreporter.com%2Fnews%2Fgame-thrones-costume-designers-reveal-705873&t=OTk3MzE4Zjc1MDU5N2RiYTMzYmYyMDM1OTMyNjVkZTNkZjFiNmYzMSwycnVRa3VXag%3D%3D&b=t%3AqOp2V-Aompakif6TKfPSaA&p=https%3A%2F%2Fbutterflies-dragons.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F151643925209%2Fwere-all-just-songs-in-the-end-if-we-are-lucky&m=1) and animal motifs, especially with the female characters, employ subtle clues to the characters’ narrative evolutions. Sansa’s “spirit animal” motif is applied to her costume over and over as her character and story develop._
> 
> _There are many theories about the Stark girl’s flighty, winged creature crest, from[Sansa’s moth ring](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.instructables.com%2Fid%2FSansa-Moth-Ring%2F&t=ODEyZjE0NTQxNjg4ZGMwZmQ3NDM5ZjUyNTZmNDI5NDAxNjNjNmMyOCwycnVRa3VXag%3D%3D&b=t%3AqOp2V-Aompakif6TKfPSaA&p=https%3A%2F%2Fbutterflies-dragons.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F151643925209%2Fwere-all-just-songs-in-the-end-if-we-are-lucky&m=1) to her embellished gowns. Cersei calls her “little dove,” and winged creatures are traditionally symbols of beauty and fragility. However, I feel that Sansa and her symbolism are far more complex than this. Moths, dragonflies, and butterflies are metamorphic creatures that, despite their visually flimsy allure and delicate nature, evolve and grow as they shift and change. I feel like they are a very apt metaphor for Sansa Stark, who, through her pain due to her fragile place in society as a woman, is never broken entirely. She only evolves and grows as she shifts and changes through self realization._
> 
> _It is also discussed that the story of The Prince of Dragonflies — a Targaryen prince who gave up the throne to be with his love — influenced Michele Carragher’s choice for Sansa’s personal emblem. Sansa’s obsession with courtly love, which is dashed time and time again, is mirrored in this tragic tale._

That’s why I started to research for references about Sansa & dragonfly symbolism and/or Sansa & the Prince of Dragonflies in the books. And this is what I found: 

##  **I. A BIT OF HISTORY**

As the article says, the Prince of Dragonflies was a Targaryen prince who gave up the throne to be with his love, a girl called Jenny of Oldstones: 

> _Aegon’s eldest son Duncan, Prince of Dragonstone and heir to the throne, was the first to defy him. **Though betrothed to a daughter of House Baratheon of Storm’s End, Duncan became enamored of a strange, lovely, and mysterious girl who called herself Jenny of Oldstones in 239 AC, whilst traveling in the riverlands.**  Though she dwelt half-wild amidst ruins and claimed descent from the long- vanished kings of the First Men, the smallfolk of surrounding villages mocked such tales, insisting that she was only some half-mad peasant girl, and perhaps even a witch._
> 
> _It was true that Aegon had been a friend to the smallfolk, had practically grown up among them, but to countenance the marriage of the heir to the throne to a commoner of uncertain birth was beyond him. **His Grace did all he could to have the marriage undone, demanding that Duncan put Jenny aside. The prince shared his father’s stubbornness, however, and refused him.** Even when the High Septon, Grand Maester, and small council joined together to insist King Aegon force his son to choose between the Iron Throne and this wild woman of the woods,  **Duncan would not budge. Rather than give up Jenny, he foreswore his claim to the crown in favor of his brother Jaehaerys, and abdicated as Prince of Dragonstone.**_
> 
> _Even that could not restore the peace, nor win back the friendship of Storm’s End, however. The father of the spurned girl, Lord Lyonel Baratheon of Storm’s End—known as the Laughing Storm and famed for his prowess in battle—was not a man easily appeased when his pride was wounded. A short, bloody rebellion ensued, ending only when Ser Duncan of the Kingsguard defeated Lord Lyonel in single combat, and King Aegon gave his solemn word that his youngest daughter, Rhaelle, would wed Lord Lyonel’s heir. To seal the bargain, Princess Rhaelle was sent to Storm’s End to serve as Lord Lyonel’s cupbearer and companion to his lady wife. **Jenny of Oldstones—Lady Jenny, as she was called by courtesy—was eventually accepted at court, and throughout the Seven Kingdoms the smallfolk held her especially dear. She and her prince, forever after known as the Prince of Dragonflies, were a favorite subject of singers for many years.**_
> 
> _**Jenny of Oldstones was accompanied to court by a dwarfish, albino woman**  who was reputed to be a woods witch in the riverlands. Lady Jenny herself claimed, in her ignorance, that she was a child of the forest._
> 
> **—The World of Ice and Fire - The Targaryen Kings: Aegon V**

> _**The love between Jenny of Oldstones (“with flowers in her hair”) and Duncan, Prince of Dragonflies, is beloved of singers, storytellers, and young maids even to this day** , but it caused great grief to Lord Lyonel’s daughter and brought shame and dishonor to House Baratheon. So great was the wroth of the Laughing Storm that he swore a bloody oath of vengeance, renounced allegiance to the Iron Throne, and had himself crowned as a new Storm King.  **Peace was restored only after the Kingsguard knight Ser Duncan the Tall faced Lord Lyonel in a trial by battle, Prince Duncan renounced his claim to crown and throne, and King Aegon V agreed that his youngest daughter, the Princess Rhaelle, would wed Lord Lyonel’s heir.**_
> 
> _As the Seven in their wisdom would have it, it was the match that King Aegon V agreed to in order to appease the Laughing Storm that ultimately led to the end of Targaryen rule in the Seven Kingdoms. In 245 AC Princess Rhaelle fulfilled her father’s promise and wed Ormund Baratheon, young Lord of Storm’s End. The following year she gave him a son, Steffon, who served as a page and a squire at King’s Landing and became a close companion of Prince Aerys, eldest son of King Jaehaerys II and heir to the Iron Throne._
> 
> _Sadly, Lord Steffon drowned in Shipbreaker Bay whilst returning from a mission to Volantis, where King Aerys II had sent him to seek a wife for his son Rhaegar…but Steffon’s own firstborn son, Robert, succeeded him as Lord of Storm’s End and grew to be one of the finest knights in the Seven Kingdoms—a warrior so strong and fearless that many hailed him as the Laughing Storm reborn.  
> _
> 
> _When the madness of King Aerys II became too much to be borne, it was to Lord Robert that the lords of the realm turned. **In 282 AC, at the ford of the Trident, Robert Baratheon slew Rhaegar Targaryen, Prince of Dragonstone, and shattered his host, effectively ending three centuries of rule by the House of the Dragon. Soon thereafter he ascended the Iron Throne himself as Robert I Baratheon, the progenitor of a glorious new dynasty.**  
> _
> 
> **—The World of Ice and Fire - The Stormlands: House Baratheon**

Note the parallels between Duncan Targaryen, his betrothed Baratheon and Jenny of Oldstones & Rhaegar Targaryen, Lyanna Stark and her betrothed Robert Baratheon: A Targaryen prince breaking an engagement with a member of House Baratheon that then originates a rebellion.  

The article also mentioned that the story of the Prince of Dragonflies is a tragic tale, but I think the love story of Jenny and Duncan and the [Tragedy of Summerhall](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fawoiaf.westeros.org%2Findex.php%2FTragedy_at_Summerhall&t=NjkyMjRlMmY0YTQyMjkxZGY2Yjk1ZGQzYTc5NDQzNTU4NDQ1ZTlhMywycnVRa3VXag%3D%3D&b=t%3AqOp2V-Aompakif6TKfPSaA&p=https%3A%2F%2Fbutterflies-dragons.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F151643925209%2Fwere-all-just-songs-in-the-end-if-we-are-lucky&m=1), where Duncan died, are two different stories and different songs were sung about these two stories. And the Tragedy of Summerhal happened during an attempt to hatch dragon eggs, but in the books of A Song of Ice and Fire there are already three dragons.  

So, we have some historical background that connect Sansa and her family with the story of Jenny of Oldstones and her Prince of Dragonflies.     

##  **II. CATELYN TULLY AND PETYR BAELISH**

The story of Jenny of Oldstones and her Prince of Dragonflies is mentioned in one of Catelyn’s chapters, the one where we can read the title of this long post:

> _It was there that Catelyn found Robb, standing somber in the gathering dusk with only Grey Wind beside him. The rain had stopped for once, and he was bareheaded. **“Does this castle have a name?”**  he asked quietly, when she came up to him.“_
> 
> _**Oldstones** , all the smallfolk called it when I was a girl, but no doubt it had some other name when it was still a hall of kings.”  **She had camped here once with her father, on their way to Seagard. Petyr was with us too…**_
> 
> _**“There’s a song,”**  he remembered.  **“'Jenny of Oldstones, with the flowers in her hair.’”**_
> 
> **_“We’re all just songs in the end. If we are lucky.” She had played at being Jenny that day, had even wound flowers in her hair. And Petyr had pretended to be her Prince of Dragonflies. Catelyn could not have been more than twelve, Petyr just a boy._ **
> 
> **—A Storm of Swords - Catelyn V**

After reading Catelyn’s memories of playing to be Jenny of Oldstones, with the flowers in her hair, and Petyr “pretending” to be her Prince of Dragonflies, the first encounter between Sansa and Lord Baelish came to my mind:  

> _When Sansa finally looked up, a man was standing over her, staring. He was short, with a pointed beard and a silver streak in his hair, almost as old as her father. **“You must be one of her daughters,”** he said to her. He had grey-green eyes that did not smile when his mouth did.  **“You have the Tully look.”**  
> _
> 
> _**“I’m Sansa Stark,”** she said, ill at ease. The man wore a heavy cloak with a fur collar, fastened with a silver mockingbird, and he had the effortless manner of a high lord, but she did not know him. “ I have not had the honor, my lord._
> 
> _"Septa Mordane quickly took a hand. "Sweet child, this is Lord Petyr Baelish, of the king’s small council.”_
> 
> _**“Your mother was my queen of beauty once,”**  the man said quietly. His breath smelled of mint. **“You have her hair.”**  His fingers brushed against her cheek as he stroked one auburn lock. Quite abruptly he turned and walked away._
> 
> **—A Game of Thrones - Sansa II**

From Petyr’s words to Sansa (the reference of a crown of flowers and Catelyn’s hair), It seems that when he saw Sansa for the first time, he was remembering that day in Oldstones when Catelyn played at being Jenny and he “pretended” to be her prince. But, despite his memories about playing to be the prince of a song, during his second encounter with Sansa, Petyr said this about songs: 

> _Lord Baelish stroked his little pointed beard and said, “Nothing? Tell me, child, why would you have sent Ser Loras?”_
> 
> _Sansa had no choice but to explain about heroes and monsters. The king’s councillor smiled. “Well, those are not the reasons I’d have given, but …”_ _He had touched her cheek, his thumb lightly tracing the line of a cheekbone._ **_“Life is not a song, sweetling. You may learn that one day to your sorrow._ _”_ **
> 
> _Sansa did not feel like telling all that to Jeyne, however; it made her uneasy just to think back on it._
> 
> **—A Game of Thrones - Sansa III**

As we can see, the two children who once played to be Jenny of Oldstones and her Prince of Dragonflies, now have very different views about songs, Catelyn a hopeful one:  **“ _We’re all just songs in the end. If we are lucky._ ”**, and Petyr a disappointed, disillusioned one:  ** _“Life is not a song, sweetling. You may learn that one day to your sorrow._ _”_**  

Note that when Catelyn said that words to Robb, they were on their way to the Twins to attend Edmure’s wedding, since Robb broke his engagement and got married to Jeyne Westerling; that is, a very difficult and dangerous situation. But even in that moment, Catelyn’s words were hopeful. 

Here I think that Catelyn was clearly associating the story of Jenny of Oldstones and her Prince of Dragonflies with Robb and his new wife. Robb was King in The North at that moment, and broke his engagement with a Frey girl to marry Jeyne Westerling for love; and hoping that the new engagement between Edmure and a Frey girl holds the alliance between House Frey and House Stark. Catelyn was hoping that Robb’s song, in the end, was a lucky song. 

After all, Catelyn’s own song was a lucky one. Although her betrothal with Brandon Stark was broken by his death after the “abduction” of Lyanna Stark; in the end, she found love with Ned and formed a family with him.    

But Catelyn’s lucky song meant Petyr’s sorrow. In his mind, Petyr lost Catelyn twice: first to Brandon Stark and then to Ned Stark. That wound is still unhealed and I think that’s the reason of his sickly obsession with Sansa Stark, a new and upgraded version of his lost love: Catelyn Tully. 

For Petyr, Sansa means not only the possibility of reenact his crushed dreams with Catelyn, but also his revenge against the Starks. In fact, due to Petyr’s actions, Catelyn’s song ended with Ned’s death and also Sansa’s dreams about songs were crushed with her father’s death.

So, through Catelyn and Petyr, we have a first connection in the books between Sansa and the story of Jenny of Oldstones and her Prince of Dragonflies. 

##  **III.  THE GHOST OF HIGH HEART**

The second connection in the books between Sansa and the story of Jenny of Oldstones and her Prince of Dragonflies is the dwarfish, albino woman who accompanied Jenny to court, that we knew in A Storm of Swords as the Ghost of High Heart:

> _Beside the embers of their campfire, she saw Tom, Lem, and Greenbeard talking to **a tiny little woman, a foot shorter than Arya and older than Old Nan, all stooped and wrinkled and leaning on a gnarled black cane. Her white hair was so long it came almost to the ground. When the wind gusted it blew about her head in a fine cloud. Her flesh was whiter, the color of milk, and it seemed to Arya that her eyes were red, though it was hard to tell from the bushes**._
> 
> **—A Storm of Swords - Arya IV**

Most of the dreams of the Ghost of High Heart are about Sansa and her family. The tiny woman dreamt about the Red Wedding, the Purple Wedding, Lady Stoneheart and Sansa killing some savage giant in a castle built of snow:

> _“The old gods stir and will not let me sleep,” she heard the woman say. “I dreamt I saw a shadow with a burning heart butchering a golden stag, aye. I dreamt of a man without a face, waiting on a bridge that swayed and swung. On his shoulder perched a drowned crow with seaweed hanging from his wings. **I dreamt of a roaring river and a woman that was a fish. Dead she drifted, with red tears on her cheeks, but when her eyes did open, oh, I woke from terror.**  All this I dreamt, and more. Do you have gifts for me, to pay me for my dreams?”_
> 
> **—A Storm of Swords - Arya IV**

> _“I dreamt a wolf howling in the rain, but no one heard his grief,” the dwarf woman was saying. “I dreamt such a clangor I thought my head might burst, drums and horns and pipes and screams, but the saddest sound was the little bells. **I dreamt of a maid at a feast with purple serpents in her hair, venom dripping from their fangs. And later I dreamt that maid again, slaying a savage giant in a castle built of snow.”**_
> 
> **—A Storm of Swords - Arya VIII**

Almost all the dreams of the Ghost of High Heart about Sansa and her family are sad prophecies that have been fulfilled, except the last one:  **“** _ **I dreamt that maid again, slaying a savage giant in a castle built of snow”**._  This one doesn’t sound sad, Sansa appears in an advantageous position, and is the only one that is not fulfilled yet in the books. 

I know that “similar events” have already happened in the books:

> _**The snow fell and the castle rose.**  Two walls ankle-high, the inner taller than the outer. Towers and turrets, keeps and stairs, a round kitchen, a square armory, the stables along the inside of the west wall.  **It was only a castle when she began, but before very long Sansa knew it was Winterfell.**_
> 
> _[…] “Winterfell?” Robert was small for eight, a stick of a boy with splotchy skin and eyes that were always runny. Under one arm he clutched the threadbare cloth doll he carried everywhere._
> 
> _“Winterfell is the seat of House Stark,” Sansa told her husband-to-be. “The great castle of the north.”_
> 
> _“It’s not so great.” The boy knelt before the gatehouse. **“Look, here comes a giant to knock it down.” He stood his doll in the snow and moved it jerkily. “Tromp tromp I’m a giant, I’m a giant,” he chanted. “Ho ho ho, open your gates or I’ll mash them and smash them.” Swinging the doll by the legs, he knocked the top off one gatehouse tower and then the other.**_
> 
> _It was more than Sansa could stand. “Robert, stop that.” Instead he swung the doll again, and a foot of wall exploded. **She grabbed for his hand but she caught the doll instead. There was a loud ripping sound as the thin cloth tore. Suddenly she had the doll’s head, Robert had the legs and body, and the rag-and-sawdust stuffing was spilling in the snow.**_
> 
> _Lord Robert’s mouth trembled. **“You killlllllllled him,”** he wailed. Then he began to shake. It started with no more than a little shivering, but within a few short heartbeats he had collapsed across the castle, his limbs flailing about violently. White towers and snowy bridges shattered and fell on all sides. Sansa stood horrified, but Petyr Baelish seized her cousin’s wrists and shouted for the maester.   
> _
> 
> __[…]_  A mad rage seized hold of her.  **She picked up a broken branch and smashed the torn doll’s head down on top of it, then pushed it down atop the shattered gatehouse of her snow castle.**  The servants looked aghast, but when Littlefinger saw what she’d done he laughed. “If the tales be true, that’s not the first giant to end up with his head on Winterfell’s walls.”   
> _
> 
> _“Those are only stories,” she said, and left him there.  
> _
> 
> **— A Storm of Swords - Sansa VII**

But I think the last dream of the Ghost of High Heart about Sansa means something else, something more important for Sansa’s story. And maybe this prophecy is the lucky twist in Sansa’s story, the turning point for Sansa’s song, that could be, in the end, a lucky song.  

[I also think that the savage giant of this prophecy is Petyr Baelish](http://durrandurrandon.tumblr.com/post/133571474573/the-castle-made-of-snow). What more sweet than Sansa killing Littlefinger?  

##  **IV. SANSA STARK AND THE SONGS**  

The story of Jenny of Oldstones and the Prince of Dragonflies is not one of Sansa’s favorite songs, she is more into Jonquil and Florian & Queen Naerys and Prince Aemon:  

> _“Father, I only just now remembered, I can’t go away, I’m to marry Prince Joffrey.” She tried to smile bravely for him. **“I love him, Father, I truly truly do, I love him as much as Queen Naerys loved Prince Aemon the Dragonknight, as much as Jonquil loved Ser Florian.**  I want to be his queen and have his babies.”_
> 
> **—A Game of Thrones - Sansa III**
> 
> _She pulled a chair close to the hearth, took down one of her favorite books, and lost herself in **the stories of Florian and Jonquil, of Lady Shella and the Rainbow Knight, of valiant Prince Aemon and his doomed love for his brother’s queen.**_
> 
> **—A Game of Thrones - Sansa IV**
> 
> _Home, she thought, home, he is going to take me home, he’ll keep me safe, my Florian. **The songs about Florian and Jonquil were her very favorites.** Florian was homely too, though not so old._
> 
> **—A Clash of Kings - Sansa II**

But after her father’s death, Sansa’s dreams about songs and stories were crushed and she entered in a progressive state of disbelief and hopelessness: 

> _Frog-faced Lord Slyntsat at the end of the council table wearing a black velvet doublet and a shiny cloth-of-gold cape, nodding with approval every time the king pronounced a sentence. Sansa stared hard at his ugly face, remembering how he had thrown down her father for Ser Ilyn to behead, wishing she could hurt him, wishing that some hero would throw him down and cut off his head. **But a voice inside her whispered, There are no heroes, and she remembered what Lord Petyr had said to her, here in this very hall. “Life is not a song, sweetling,” he’d told her. “You may learn that one day to your sorrow.” In life, the monsters win, she told herself** , and now it was the Hound’s voice she heard, a cold rasp, metal on stone. “Save yourself some pain, girl, and give him what he wants.”_
> 
> **—A Game of Thrones - Sansa VI**

> _They are children, Sansa thought. They are silly little girls, even Elinor. They’ve never seen a battle, they’ve never seen a man die, they know nothing. **Their dreams were full of songs and stories, the way hers had been before Joffrey cut her father’s head off. Sansa pitied them. Sansa envied them.**_
> 
> **—A Storm of Swords - Sansa II**

And her hopes were only crushed more and more after the death of his mother and brothers:

> _**That was such a sweet dream** , Sansa thought drowsily. She had been back in Winterfell, running through the godswood with her Lady. Her father had been there, and her brothers, all of them warm and safe.  **If only dreaming could make it so…**_
> 
> _She threw back the coverlets. I must be brave. Her torments would soon be ended, one way or the other. If Lady was here, I would not be afraid. Lady was dead, though; Robb, Bran, Rickon, Arya, her father, her mother, even Septa Mordane. **All of them are dead but me. She was alone in the world now.**_
> 
> **—A Storm of Swords - Sansa IV**

“Alone in this world”, Sansa only receives words of hopelessness about songs and stories over and over again:        

> _“She never did that,” Sansa blurted out suddenly._
> 
> **_“_ _Never believe anything you hear in a song, my lady.“_ ** _Tyrion summoned a serving man to refill their wine cups._
> 
> **—A Storm of Swords - Tyrion VIII**

> _"Do you perchance recall what I said to you that day your father sat the Iron Throne?_
> 
> _"The moment came back to her vividly. **"You told me that life was not a song. That I would learn that one day, to my sorrow.”**  She felt tears in her eyes, but whether she wept for Ser Dontos Hollard, for Joff, for Tyrion, or for herself, Sansa could not say.  **“Is it all lies, forever and ever, everyone and everything?”**_
> 
> _“Almost everyone. Save you and I, of course.” He smiled.  
> _
> 
> ******—** A Storm of Swords - Sansa V** **
> 
> _The servants looked aghast, but when Littlefinger saw what she’d done he laughed. **“If the tales be true, that’s not the first giant to end up with his head on Winterfell’s walls.”**_
> 
> _**“Those are only stories,” she said, and left him there.** _
> 
> ****— A Storm of Swords - Sansa VII**   
>  **

And at the end of A Storm of Swords, she believes that her own song was ended:

> _She had last seen snow the day she’d left Winterfell. That was a lighter fall than this, she remembered. Robb had melting flakes in his hair when he hugged me, and the snowball Arya tried to make kept coming apart in her hands. It hurt to remember how happy she had been that morning. Hullen had helped her mount, and she’d ridden out with the snowflakes swirling around her, off to see the great wide world. **I thought my song was beginning that day, but it was almost done.**_
> 
> **—A Storm of Swords - Sansa VII**

The only time the story of Jenny of Oldstones and her Prince of Dragonflies are mentioned in one of Sansa’s chapters is when she is almost done with songs and singers. This happened after Marillion tried to rape her and then he was accused of Lysa’s murder:

> _But that was when she was a little girl, and foolish. She was a maiden now, three-and-ten and flowered. **All her nights were full of song, and by day she prayed for silence.**_
> 
> _If the Eyrie had been made like other castles, only rats and gaolers would have heard the dead man singing. Dungeon walls were thick enough to swallow songs and screams alike. But the sky cells had a wall of empty air, so every chord the dead man played flew free to echo off the stony shoulders of the Giant’s Lance. And the songs he chose… He sang of the Dance of the Dragons, of fair Jonquil and her fool, **of Jenny of Oldstones and the Prince of Dragonflies.** He sang of betrayals, and murders most foul, of hanged men and bloody vengeance. He sang of grief and sadness._
> 
> _**No matter where she went in the castle, Sansa could not escape the music.** It floated up the winding tower steps, found her naked in her bath, supped with her at dusk, and stole into her bedchamber even when she latched the shutters tight. It came in on the cold thin air, and like the air, it chilled her. Though it had not snowed upon the Eyrie since the day that Lady Lysa fell, the nights had all been bitter cold._
> 
> **—A Feast for Crows - Sansa I**

But, despite this progressive state of disbelief and hopelessness, I think there is still hope for Sansa’s dreams of living a song, she is not alone in this world, and definitely there is still one hero that cares about her and is willing to help her. And that’s what I’m trying to expound with this long post, because, as Catelyn said:  **“ _We’re all just songs in the end. If we are lucky._ ”**    

##  **V. SANSA STARK & THE STORY OF  **JENNY OF OLDSTONES AND THE PRINCE OF DRAGONFLIES****

Despite it isn’t one of Sansa’s favorite songs, the story of Jenny of Oldstones and her Prince of Dragonflies has some connections with Sansa’s story throughout the books:

  * Jenny is a girl from Oldstones in the riverlands. [The riverlands are ruled from Riverrun by House Tully, the Lords Paramount of the Trident.](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fawoiaf.westeros.org%2Findex.php%2FRiverlands&t=Njk1ZDY4NDNiZDQ0YmE5MjdmNDg1YzQzNzc4N2YyOTliZTQyODg5NSwycnVRa3VXag%3D%3D&b=t%3AqOp2V-Aompakif6TKfPSaA&p=https%3A%2F%2Fbutterflies-dragons.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F151643925209%2Fwere-all-just-songs-in-the-end-if-we-are-lucky&m=1) Here’s a connection with Sansa’s mother Catelyn Tully, daugther of the Lord of Riverrun.     
  * Jenny claimed to be descent from the long- vanished kings of the First Men. Here’s a connection with House Stark. [They are descendants of the First Men and still follow some of their ancient traditions and the old gods of the forest. ](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fawoiaf.westeros.org%2Findex.php%2FHouse_Stark&t=NzJhZTQyMzY5ZWUwNTE0MjJkMDZmOGNhZGI1M2ZjNTkzODhjNjJjYywycnVRa3VXag%3D%3D&b=t%3AqOp2V-Aompakif6TKfPSaA&p=https%3A%2F%2Fbutterflies-dragons.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F151643925209%2Fwere-all-just-songs-in-the-end-if-we-are-lucky&m=1)
  * Jenny claimed that her friend, a dwarfish, albino woman, the Ghost of High Heart, was a child of the forest. Here’s another connection with House Stark. They worship the [old gods](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fawoiaf.westeros.org%2Findex.php%2FOld_gods&t=ZTA4YjhjYzRjZDM4NDY0NjBhMDNhY2VkOGEyNDM4YjYyMDFjNDFjZCwycnVRa3VXag%3D%3D&b=t%3AqOp2V-Aompakif6TKfPSaA&p=https%3A%2F%2Fbutterflies-dragons.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F151643925209%2Fwere-all-just-songs-in-the-end-if-we-are-lucky&m=1) of the [children of the forest](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fawoiaf.westeros.org%2Findex.php%2FChildren_of_the_forest&t=NjNiZGRiZjBmN2ZjNzFkZGJjYTc1YmI5OWRlNjQ2ZjdmNWM3ZWYwMiwycnVRa3VXag%3D%3D&b=t%3AqOp2V-Aompakif6TKfPSaA&p=https%3A%2F%2Fbutterflies-dragons.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F151643925209%2Fwere-all-just-songs-in-the-end-if-we-are-lucky&m=1).
  * Sansa’s mother Catelyn Tully was fond of the love story of Jenny of Oldstones and her Prince of Dragonflies.
  * Petyr Baelish was in love with Catelyn Tully and he pretended to be her Prince of Dragonflies. Then he developed a sickly obsession with Sansa, a new and upgraded version of Catelyn.
  * Most of the dreams of Jenny’s friend, the Ghost of High Heart, are about Sansa and her family.   



So, Sansa has all these connections with the lady of this story: Jenny of Oldstones; but, who could it play the part of the Prince of Dragonflies in Sansa’s own story?  

As I said before, for Petyr Baelish, Sansa means the possibility of reenact his crushed dreams with Catelyn. But from Catelyn’s words, we can see that Petyr was only a pretender, not her prince. She had Brandon first and then she married Ned and found love with him. And for Sansa, it is very clear that Petyr’s approaches to her are really disgusting, he is always touching her cheeks and hair and she doesn’t like it at all (Not to mention the kisses and sitting her in his lap…). [And it is also clear that Petyr’s motivations towards Sansa have nothing to do with true love.](http://goodqueenaly.tumblr.com/post/150400267853/do-you-think-petyr-genuinely-loves-sansa-i-just) We all know that Petyr Baelish was never a prince, let alone a prince able to give up the throne for love. Petyr is a player of the Game of Thrones and he wants to win, he is not willing to give up anything:

> _Lord Petyr loosened a seed with the point of his dagger. **“You must miss your father terribly, I know. Lord Eddard was a brave man, honest and loyal … but quite a hopeless player.”** He brought the seed to his mouth with the knife. “In King’s Landing, there are two sorts of people. The players and the pieces.”  
> _
> 
> _**“And I was a piece?” She dreaded the answer.“** _
> 
> _Yes, but don’t let that trouble you. You’re still half a child. **Every man’s a piece to start with, and every maid as well**. Even some who think they are players.” He ate another seed. “Cersei, for one. She thinks herself sly, but in truth she is utterly predictable. Her strength rests on her beauty, birth, and riches. Only the first of those is truly her own, and it will soon desert her. I pity her then. She wants power, but has no notion what to do with it when she gets it.  **Everyone wants something, Alayne. And when you know what a man wants you know who he is, and how to move him.”**_
> 
> ****—** A Storm of Swords - Sansa VI**

> _The mention of the queen’s name made her stiffen. “She’s not kind. She scares me. **If she should learn where I am—”**  
> _
> 
> _**“—I might have to remove her from the game sooner than I’d planned. Provided she does not remove herself first.”**  Petyr teased her with a little smile._
> 
> _**“In the game of thrones, even the humblest pieces can have wills of their own. Sometimes they refuse to make the moves you’ve planned for them. Mark that well, Alayne.**  It’s a lesson that Cersei Lannister still has yet to learn. Now, don’t you have some duties to perform?”_
> 
> **— A Feast for Crows - Alayne I**  

So, who else could it play the part of the Prince of Dragonflies in Sansa’s story? Who could it be the prince willing to give up the throne for love? Let’s see: 

> _**When Jon had been very young, too young to understand what it meant to be a bastard, he used to dream that one day Winterfell might be his.**  Later, when he was older, he had been ashamed of those dreams. Winterfell would go to Robb and then his sons, or to Bran or Rickon should Robb die childless.  **And after them came Sansa**  and Arya. Even to dream otherwise seemed disloyal, as if he were betraying them in his heart, wishing for their deaths. I never wanted this, he thought as he stood before the blue-eyed king and the red woman. **I loved Robb, loved all of them …**  I never wanted any harm to come to any of them, but it did. And now there’s only me.  **All he had to do was say the word, and he would be Jon Stark, and nevermore a Snow. All he had to do was pledge this king his fealty, and Winterfell was his**. All he had to do …_
> 
> _…was forswear his vows again._
> 
> _[…]_ _**Are you refusing me, Jon Snow?“** _
> 
> _**"No,” Jon said, too quickly. It was Winterfell the king was speaking of, and Winterfell was not to be lightly refused.** “I mean … this has all come very suddenly, Your Grace. Might I beg you for some time to consider?”_
> 
> _“As you wish. But consider quickly. I am not a patient man, as your black brothers are about to discover.” Stannis put a thin, fleshless hand on Jon’s shoulder. “Say nothing of what we’ve discussed here today. To anyone. **But when you return, you need only bend your knee, lay your sword at my feet, and pledge yourself to my service, and you shall rise again as Jon Stark, the Lord of Winterfell.”**_
> 
> **—A Storm of Swords - Jon XI**

> __Every morning they had trained together, since they were big enough to walk; Snow and Stark, spinning and slashing about the wards of Winterfell, shouting and laughing, sometimes crying when there was no one else to see. They were not little boys when they fought, but knights and mighty heroes. “I’m Prince Aemon the Dragonknight,” Jon would call out, and Robb would shout back, “Well, I’m Florian the Fool.” Or Robb would say, “I’m the Young Dragon,” and Jon would reply, “I’m Ser Ryam Redwyne._ _
> 
> __**”** _ _**That morning he called it first. “I’m Lord of Winterfell!” he cried, as he had a hundred times before. Only this time, this time, Robb had answered, “You can’t be Lord of Winterfell, you’re bastard-born. My lady mother says you can’t ever be the Lord of Winterfell.”** _ _
> 
> ___[…]_ _ _ __Why am I so angry? he asked himself, but it was a stupid question. **Lord of Winterfell. I could be the Lord of Winterfell. My father’s heir.**_ _
> 
> _____[…]_ _ _ _ _ __**Winterfell, he thought. Theon left it burned and broken, but I could restore it. Surely his father would have wanted that, and Robb as well. They would never have wanted the castle left in ruins.** _ _
> 
> _[…]_ _**Stannis wants me to be the Lord of Winterfell. But what do I want?**   _[…]_  Would I sooner be hanged for a turncloak by Lord Janos, or forswear my vows, marry Val, and become the Lord of Winterfell? It seemed an easy choice when he thought of it in those terms  _[…]__

> _**He wanted it, Jon knew then. He wanted it as much as he had ever wanted anything. I have always wanted it, he thought, guiltily. May the gods forgive me.**   It was a hunger inside him, sharp as a dragonglass blade. A hunger… he could feel it. It was food he needed, prey, a red deer that stank of fear or a great elk proud and defiant. He needed to kill and fill his belly with fresh meat and hot dark blood. His mouth began to water with the thought._
> 
> __It was a long moment before he understood what was happening. When he did, he bolted to his feet. **“Ghost?”**  _ _
> 
> __[…] Red eyes, Jon realized, but not like Melisandre’s. **He had a weirwood’s eyes. Red eyes, red mouth, white fur. Blood and bone, like a heart tree. He belongs to the old gods, this one.** And he alone of all the direwolves was white. Six pups they’d found in the late summer snows, him and Robb; five that were grey and black and brown, for the five Starks,  **and one white, as white as Snow.**  
> _ _
> 
> __**He had his answer then.** _ _
> 
> **—A Storm of Swords - Jon XII**

At this point, we all know what was Jon’s answer, right? And we know that his answer was built based on love, the love for his family, his brothers and sisters, love epitomized in one name: 

> _“How can I lose men I do not have? **I had hoped to bestow Winterfell on a northman, you may recall. A son of Eddard Stark. He threw my offer in my face.”** Stannis Baratheon with a grievance was like a mastiff with a bone; he gnawed it down to splinters._
> 
> _**“By right Winterfell should go to my sister Sansa.”** _
> 
> _“Lady Lannister, you mean? Are you so eager to see the Imp perched on your father’s seat? I promise you, that will not happen whilst I live, Lord Snow.”_
> 
> **—A Dance with Dragons - Jon I**

> _**Jon said, “Winterfell belongs to my sister Sansa.”** _
> 
> _“I have heard all I need to hear of Lady Lannister and her claim.” The king set the cup aside. “You could bring the north to me. Your father’s bannermen would rally to the son of Eddard Stark. Even Lord Too-Fat-to-Sit-a-Horse. White Harbor would give me a ready source of supply and a secure base to which I could retreat at need. **It is not too late to amend your folly, Snow. Take a knee and swear that bastard sword to me, and rise as Jon Stark, Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North.”**_
> 
> _**How many times will he make me say it?**  “My sword is sworn to the Night’s Watch.”_
> 
> **—A Dance with Dragons - Jon IV**

I know all these facts are not equal to the facts of the story of Jenny of Oldstones and her Prince of Dragonflies, Jon is not exactly giving up Winterfell to marry Sansa, and Sansa is sure that she is only appealing because of her claim:  

> “I will be safe in Highgarden. Willas will keep me safe.”
> 
> “But he does not know you,” Dontos insisted, “and he will not love you. Jonquil, Jonquil, open your sweet eyes, these Tyrells care nothing for you.  **It’s your claim they mean to wed.”**
> 
> **_“My claim?” She was lost for a moment._   
>  **
> 
> _**“Sweetling,” he told her, “you are heir to Winterfell.”**  He grabbed her again, pleading that she must not do this thing, and Sansa wrenched free and left him swaying beneath the heart tree. She had not visited the godswood since.  
> _
> 
> _But she had not forgotten his words, either. **The heir to Winterfell, she would think as she lay abed at night. It’s your claim they mean to wed.**  Sansa had grown up with three brothers. She never thought to have a claim, but with Bran and Rickon dead… It doesn’t matter, there’s still Robb, he’s a man grown now, and soon he’ll wed and have a son. Anyway, Willas Tyrell will have Highgarden, what would he want with Winterfell?  
> _
> 
> ****—** A Storm of Swords - Sansa II**

> _**How would you like to marry your cousin, the Lord Robert?”** _
> 
> _The thought made Sansa weary. All she knew of Robert Arryn was that he was a little boy, and sickly. **It is not me she wants her son to marry, it is my claim. No one will ever marry me for love.** But lying came easy to her now. “I … can scarcely wait to meet him, my lady. But he is still a child, is he not?”_
> 
> ****—** A Storm of Swords - Sansa VI**

But, instead of Tyrion, Willas or even Robert, who pursue Sansa’s claim over her, there is a man that has been offered Winterfell and choose her over it: **__By right Winterfell should go to my sister Sansa.“__ _"Winterfell belongs to my sister Sansa."_** Among all the high lords interested in becoming the Lord of Winterfell by marrying Sansa Stark, the bastard Jon Snow refused to despoil his sister Sansa of her rights,  _e_ ven if her claim is the one thing he has wanted as much as he had ever wanted anything.

Yes, I think the role of the Prince of Dragonflies suits Jon quite well:

  * Duncan was a Targaryen prince who gave up the throne to be with his love, Jenny of Oldstones. Jon gave up the one thing he has always wanted: Being the Lord of Winterfell, his father’s heir, a Stark; and he did it for love. He refused to despoil Sansa of her rights,  _e_ ven if her claim is the one thing he has wanted as much as he had ever wanted anything.
  * Duncan was named after his father’s best friend, Ser Duncan The Tall. Jon was named after Jon Arryn, the beloved friend of Eddard Stark.
  * Ser Duncan The Tall himself remembers me of Jon Snow, just look up at this: "That can be changed,” said Maekar. “Aegon is to return to my castle at Summerhall.  **There is a place there for you, if you wish. A knight of my household. You’ll swear your sword to me, and Aegon can squire for you.**  While you train him, my master-at-arms will finish your own training.” The prince gave him a shrewd look. “Your Ser Arlan did all he could for you, I have no doubt, but you still have much to learn.”“I know, m'lord.” Dunk looked about him. At the green grass and the reeds, the tall elm, the ripples dancing across the surface of the sunlit pool.  **Another dragonfly was moving across the water, or perhaps it was the same one. What shall it be, Dunk? he asked himself. Dragonflies or dragons? A few days ago he would have answered at once. It was all he had ever dreamed, but now that the prospect was at hand it frightened him.**  “Just before Prince Baelor died, I swore to be his man.” **—The Hedge Knight.** This sounds to me so much like Stannis offering Winterfell to Jon and Jon giving up her long desired dream arguing:  _ **“My sword is sworn to the Night’s Watch.”**_
  * And maybe the previous point is the reason why Duncan Targaryen was called The Prince of Dragonflies after he gave up the throne and his title as The Prince of Dragonstone.
  * If R+L=J is also confirmed in the books, Jon is the son of a Targaryen Prince: Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark. And the great nephew of the Prince of Dragonflies.   
  * Also, there are the parallels between Duncan Targaryen, his betrothed Baratheon and Jenny of Oldstones & Rhaegar Targaryen, Lyanna Stark and her betrothed Robert Baratheon: A Targaryen prince breaking an engagement with a member of House Baratheon that then originates a rebellion.   
  * And this: Sansa was betrothed with Joffrey “Baratheon” and the engagement was broken in the middle of a war with Robb Stark leading an army against King Joffrey, and Jon almost breaking his vows to join Robb’s army to avenge Ned’s death and rescue their sisters. All of which makes me think about these parallels: Sansa being a hostage in King’s Landing & Lyanna’s “abduction”, Ned’s death & Rickard’s death, Robb’s death & Brandon’s death. And that leaves Jon to possibly play the role of Ned Stark in the future.  
  * Basically if Jon and Sansa happens, they will parallel two stories: Rhaegar and Lyanna, a Targaryen/Stark couple; and Ned and Cat, a Stark/Tully couple.



And Jon giving up Winterfell is not the first time he is the silent and unknown answer to Sansa’s hopes. As I’m going to explain next, repeatedly when Sansa has a wish or a dream about her lost family and her home, Winterfell, there is always subtle or not so subtle references of Jon Snow. 

##  **VI. SANSA STARK & JON SNOW**

As I just said, Jon giving up Winterfell is not the first time he plays the role of the hero of Sansa’s hopes. We have the whole Janos Slynt case, where Jon Snow, as the Lord Commander of The Night’s Watch, literally becomes Sansa’s hoped hero at a point where she’s convinced herself that there are no heroes in the real life: 

> _**Frog-faced Lord Slynt** sat at the end of the council table wearing a black velvet doublet and a shiny cloth-of-gold cape, nodding with approval every time the king pronounced a sentence.  **Sansa stared hard at his ugly face, remembering how he had thrown down her father for Ser Ilyn to behead, wishing she could hurt him, wishing that some hero would throw him down and cut off his head.** But a voice inside her whispered,  **There are no heroes, and she remembered what Lord Petyr had said to her, here in this very hall. “Life is not a song, sweetling,” he’d told her. “You may learn that one day to your sorrow.” In life, the monsters win, she told herself** , and now it was the Hound’s voice she heard, a cold rasp, metal on stone. “Save yourself some pain, girl, and give him what he wants.”_
> 
> **—A Game of Thrones - Sansa VI**

> _“You are refusing to obey my order?”_
> 
> _“You can stick your order up your bastard’s arse,” said Slynt, his jowls quivering._
> 
> _[…]_ _“As you will.” Jon nodded to Iron Emmett. “Please take Lord Janos to the Wall—”_
> 
>  
> 
> _[…]_ _“—and hang him,” Jon finished._
> 
>  
> 
> __[…]_ _ _This is wrong, Jon thought. “Stop.”_
> 
> ___[…]__ **“I will not hang him,”**  said Jon. “Bring him here.”  
> _
> 
> _“Oh, Seven save us,” he heard Bowen Marsh cry out. The smile that Lord Janos Slynt smiled then had all the sweetness of rancid butter. Until Jon said, **“Edd,**_ **_fetch_ ** **_me_ ** _**a block,” and unsheathed Longclaw.** _
> 
> _[…]_ _The pale morning sunlight ran up and down his blade as **Jon clasped the hilt of the bastard sword with both hands and raised it high. “If you have any last words, now is the time to speak them,” he said, expecting one last curse.**_
> 
> _Janos Slynt twisted his neck around to stare up at him. **“Please, my lord. Mercy. I’ll … I’ll go, I will, I …”**  
> _
> 
> _**No, thought Jon. You closed that door. Longclaw descended.**   
>  _
> 
> _“Can I have his boots?” asked Owen the Oaf, **as Janos Slynt’s head went rolling across the muddy ground.**  “They’re almost new, those boots. Lined with fur.”_
> 
> **—A Dance with Dragons - Jon II**

If you read the entire chapter, you will find that during his conversation with Janos Slynt, Jon was thinking about Ned Stark and the participation of Slynt in his father’s death at King’s Landing. Jon even thought about how easy it would be beheading him with Longclaw. And maybe that was the reason why he opted for beheading him instead of hanging him, just as Sansa wished.

And once more, when she thinks she’s lost all of her family, there is Jon. 

Indeed, in A Storm of Swords, when she remembers her family after a dream where she is back at Winterfell with them:  **“** _ **That was such a sweet dream” “ _ **If only dreaming could make it so…**_**_ **”** , she thinks that all of them are dead (Lady, Robb, Bran, Rickon, Arya, Ned, Cat, Septa Mordane):  **“ _ **All of them are dead but me. She was alone in the world now.**_ ”**. But she forgets someone that is alive, someone she never had any news or suspected he was dead: his bastard half brother Jon Snow.

And later in A Feast for Crows, when she is under the disguise of the bastard Alayne Stone, the memory of her bastard half brother awoke:

> _There’s a new High Septon, did you know? **Oh, and the Night's Watch has a boy commander, some bastard son of Eddard Stark’s.“**_
> 
> _**"Jon Snow?” she blurted out, surprised.** _
> 
> _“Snow? Yes, it would be Snow, I suppose.”_
> 
> **_She had not thought of Jon in ages. He was only her half brother, but still… with Robb and Bran and Rickon dead, Jon Snow was the only brother that remained to her. I am a bastard too now, just like him. Oh, it would be so sweet, to see him once again. But of course that could never be. Alayne Stone had no brothers, baseborn or otherwise_.**
> 
> **—A Feast for Crows - Alayne II**

It is really beautiful how she associates her family and her home with the word ‘sweet’, and in that moment, when she is living as a bastard girl, she thinks of Jon, maybe for the first time, with sweet words:  _ **“Oh, it would be so sweet, to see him once again”**. _

So, the  ** _sweet dream_** of being again with someone of her family back in Winterfell is possible after all; even if she thinks it’s not because Alayne Stone had no brothers. But Sansa Stark does have a brother.

And once again, when she thinks that her own song was ended, there is ‘Snow’.

Exactly, at the end of A Storm of Swords, while snow was falling on the Eyrie, she thought this: _**“** _ **She had last seen snow the day she’d left Winterfell”.**  _ **“** **I thought my song was beginning that day, but it was almost done”**_.

Anew, the ‘snow’ was preceded by a dream of her family and her home:

> _She awoke all at once, every nerve atingle. For a moment she did not remember where she was. **She had dreamt that she was little, still sharing a bedchamber with her sister Arya.**  But it was her maid she heard tossing in sleep, not her sister, and this was not Winterfell, but the Eyrie. And I am Alayne Stone, a bastard girl. The room was cold and black, though she was warm beneath the blankets. Dawn had not yet come. Sometimes she dreamed of Ser Ilyn Payne and woke with her heart thumping, but this dream had not been like that.  **Home. It was a dream of home.  
> **_
> 
> _**The Eyrie was no home.** _
> 
> __[…]_ _ _**Snow was falling on the Eyrie.** _
> 
> _Outside the flakes drifted down as soft and silent as memory. **Was this what woke me?** Already the snowfall lay thick upon the garden below, blanketing the grass, dusting the shrubs and statues with white and weighing down the branches of the trees. The sight took Sansa back to cold nights long ago, in the long summer of her childhood._
> 
> _**She had last seen snow the day she’d left Winterfell.**  That was a lighter fall than this, she remembered. Robb had melting flakes in his hair when he hugged me, and the snowball Arya tried to make kept coming apart in her hands. It hurt to remember how happy she had been that morning. Hullen had helped her mount, and she’d ridden out with the snowflakes swirling around her, off to see the great wide world.  **I thought my song was beginning that day, but it was almost done.**_
> 
> _****— A Storm of Swords - Sansa VII** ** _

There is a pattern here, a dichotomy: Reality and Desire. When Sansa has a wish of vengeance or a dream of having her family and her home back, the reality immediately comes and crashes against her desires, and she ends up discarding them. But, even without knowing it yet, her desires are possible with the help of her unthought brother, Jon Snow.

The seventh Sansa’s chapter of A Storm of Swords had more references of her lost home, Winterfell and Jon Snow:

> _When she opened the door to the garden, it was so lovely that she held her breath, unwilling to disturb such perfect beauty. **The snow drifted down and down, all in ghostly silence** , and lay thick and unbroken on the ground. All color had fled the world outside.  **It was a place of whites and blacks and greys**. White towers and white snow and white statues, black shadows and black trees, the dark grey sky above.  **A pure world, Sansa thought. I do not belong here.**_
> 
> _Yet she stepped out all the same. **Her boots tore ankle-deep holes into the smooth white surface of the snow, yet made no sound**. Sansa drifted past frosted shrubs and thin dark trees, and wondered if she were still dreaming.  **Drifting snowflakes brushed her face as light as lover’s kisses, and melted on her cheeks.**  At the center of the garden, beside the statue of the weeping woman that lay broken and half-buried on the ground, she turned her face up to the sky and closed her eyes.  **She could feel the snow on her lashes, taste it on her lips. It was the taste of Winterfell. The taste of innocence. The taste of dreams.**  
> _
> 
> _When Sansa opened her eyes again, she was on her knees. She did not remember falling. It seemed to her that the sky was a lighter shade of grey. Dawn, she thought. Another day. Another new day. **It was the old days she hungered for. Prayed for. But who could she pray to?** The garden had been meant for a godswood once, she knew, but the soil was too thin and stony for a weirwood to take root.  **A godswood without gods, as empty as me.**  _
> 
> __****— A Storm of Swords - Sansa VII** ** _   
>  _

The references of Winterfell and her Stark blood are very clear. Stark colors:  **“** _ **It was a place of whites and blacks and greys”**. _ Her lost/destroyed home and dreams:  ** _“_ _She could feel the snow on her lashes, taste it on her lips. It was the taste of Winterfell. The taste of innocence. The taste of dreams”_**. Her lost faith in any goods:  **“ _ _ _ **It was the old days she hungered for. Prayed for. But who could she pray to?** The garden had been meant for a godswood once, she knew, but the soil was too thin and stony for a weirwood to take root.  **A godswood without gods, as empty as me”.**___**

The references of Jon are quite subtle. This two lines:  **“** ** _The snow drifted down and down, all in ghostly silence” “_** ** _Her boots tore ankle-deep holes into the smooth white surface of the snow, yet made no sound”_** , remind me of Jon’s silent direwolf Ghost. And this one, Oh this one:  **“Drifting snowflakes brushed her face as light as lover’s kisses, and melted on her cheeks”** _,_ this one could be about Ghost licking her cheeks or maybe something else… Anyway, lets continue: 

> _Sansa began to make snowballs, shaping and smoothing them until they were round and white and perfect. **She remembered a summer’s snow in Winterfell when Arya and Bran had ambushed her as she emerged from the keep one morning.** They’d each had a dozen snowballs to hand, and she’d had none. Bran had been perched on the roof of the covered bridge, out of reach, but Sansa had chased Arya through the stables and around the kitchen until both of them were breathless. She might even have caught her, but she’d slipped on some ice. Her sister came back to see if she was hurt. When she said she wasn’t, Arya hit her in the face with another snowball,  **but Sansa grabbed her leg and pulled her down and was rubbing snow in her hair** when Jory came along and pulled them apart, laughing.   
> _
> 
> _What do I want with snowballs? She looked at her sad little arsenal. There’s no one to throw them at. She let the one she was making drop from her hand. I could build a snow knight instead, she thought. Or even…_
> 
> ___[…]__ **The snow fell and the castle rose.**  Two walls ankle-high, the inner taller than the outer. Towers and turrets, keeps and stairs, a round kitchen, a square armory, the stables along the inside of the west wall.  **It was only a castle when she began, but before very long Sansa knew it was Winterfell.**  She found twigs and fallen branches beneath the snow and broke off the ends to make the trees for the godswood. For the gravestones in the lichyard she used bits of bark. Soon her gloves and her boots were crusty white, her hands were tingling, and her feet were soaked and cold, but she did not care.  **The castle was all that mattered.** Some things were hard to remember, but most came back to her easily, as if she had been there only yesterday. The Library Tower, with the steep stonework stair twisting about its exterior. The gatehouse, two huge bulwarks, the arched gate between them, crenellations all along the top…   
> _
> 
> ___****— A Storm of Swords - Sansa VII** ** _ _   
>  _

Again, the references of Winterfell are very clear.  _ **“It was only a castle when she began, but before very long Sansa knew it was Winterfell”**.  **“The castle was all that mattered”**. _ For me, this lines are connected with the prophecy of The Ghost of High Heart about Sansa killing some savage giant in a castle built of snow. And it implies that Sansa is going to actively participate in Winterfell rebuilding. And who else want to rebuild Winterfell?

> _**Winterfell, he thought. Theon left it burned and broken, but I could restore it. Surely his father would have wanted that, and Robb as well. They would never have wanted the castle left in ruins.** _
> 
> ****—A Storm of Swords - Jon XII** **

That’s why this line:  ** _“_** ** _The snow fell and the castle rose”_  **makes me think that Jon Snow will help Sansa to rebuild Winterfell, their lost and broken home.

And Jon and Sansa could also “rebuild” the Stark dynasty, the blood of Winterfell, as they both share the dream to have children to fill the void of their lost family, their lost parents and siblings:

> _Willas would be Lord of Highgarden and she would be his lady._
> 
>  
> 
> _She pictured the two of them sitting together in a garden with puppies in their laps, or listening to a singer strum upon a lute while they floated down the Mander on a pleasure barge. **If I give him sons, he may come to love me. She would name them Eddard and Brandon and Rickon** , and raise them all to be as valiant as Ser Loras. And to hate Lannisters, too.  **In Sansa’s dreams, her children looked just like the brothers she had lost. Sometimes there was even a girl who looked like Arya.**_
> 
> **—A Storm of Swords - Sansa II**

> _I would need to steal her if I wanted her love, **but she might give me children. I might someday hold a son of my own blood in my arms. A son was something Jon Snow had never dared dream of, since he decided to live his life on the Wall. I could name him Robb.** Val would want to keep her sister’s son, but we could foster him at Winterfell, and Gilly’s boy as well. Sam would never need to tell his lie. We’d find a place for Gilly too, and Sam could come visit her once a year or so.  **Mance’s son and Craster’s would grow up brothers, as I once did with Robb.**_
> 
> **—A Storm of Swords - Jon XII**

And finally, this line:  **“** _ **Arya hit her in the face with another snowball, but**_ _ **Sansa grabbed her leg and pulled her down and was rubbing snow in her hair”** , _reminds me of Jon messing up Arya’s hair.

At this point I must emphasize that the seventh Sansa’s chapter of A Storm of Swords comes immediately after the twelfth Jon’s chapter, the chapter where he found his answer to Stannis offer of Winterfell. And what it was that helped John to find his answer? His beloved direwolf, Ghost:

> _He wanted it, Jon knew then. He wanted it as much as he had ever wanted anything. I have always wanted it, he thought, guiltily. May the gods forgive me. It was a hunger inside him, sharp as a dragonglass blade. A hunger … he could feel it. It was food he needed, prey, a red deer that stank of fear or a great elk proud and defiant. He needed to kill and fill his belly with fresh meat and hot dark blood. His mouth began to water with the thought._
> 
> _It was a long moment before he understood what was happening. When he did, he bolted to his feet. **“Ghost?” He turned toward the wood, and there he came, padding silently out of the green dusk, the breath coming warm and white from his open jaws. “Ghost!” he shouted, and the direwolf broke into a run. He was leaner than he had been, but bigger as well, and the only sound he made was the soft crunch of dead leaves beneath his paws.**  When he reached Jon he leapt, and they wrestled amidst brown grass and long shadows as the stars came out above them. “Gods, wolf, where have you been?” Jon said when Ghost stopped worrying at his forearm. “I thought you’d died on me, like Robb and Ygritte and all the rest. I’ve had no sense of you, not since I climbed the Wall, not even in dreams.” The direwolf had no answer, but he licked Jon’s face with a tongue like a wet rasp, and his eyes caught the last light and shone like two great red suns._
> 
> _Red eyes, Jon realized, but not like Melisandre’s. **He had a weirwood’s eyes. Red eyes, red mouth, white fur. Blood and bone, like a heart tree.**   **He belongs to the old gods, this one. And he alone of all the direwolves was white. Six pups they’d found in the late summer snows, him and Robb; five that were grey and black and brown, for the five Starks, and one white, as white as Snow.**_
> 
> _He had his answer then.  
> _
> 
> **—A Storm of Swords - Jon XII**

So, at the same time, Jon and Sansa had an important realization concerning to their lost and broken home, Winterfell. And what that helped them to reach that realization was the snow. Literally snow in Sansa’s case and Ghost, the direwolf as white as snow, in Jon’s case. And this connection between Jon and Sansa reminds me of another one related to the snow. I called this connection ‘[Children of the Mountain](http://butterflies-dragons.tumblr.com/post/150512188549/children-of-the-mountain-soon-they-were-high)’: 

> _Soon they were high enough so that looking down was best not considered. There was nothing below but yawning blackness, nothing above but moon and stars. **“The mountain is your mother,” Stonesnake had told him during an easier climb a few days past. “Cling to her, press your face up against her teats, and she won’t drop you.”**  Jon had made a joke of it, saying how he’d always wondered who his mother was, but never thought to find her in the Frostfangs. It did not seem nearly so amusing now. One step and then another, he thought, clinging tight._
> 
> **—A Clash of Kings - Jon VI**
> 
> _“You’re mistaken. I never fall.” Mya’s hair had tumbled across her cheek, hiding one eye._
> 
> _“Almost, I said. I saw you. Weren’t you afraid?_
> 
> _“Mya shook her head. "I remember a man throwing me in the air when I was very little. He stands as tall as the sky, and he throws me up so high it feels as though I’m flying. We’re both laughing, laughing so much that I can hardly catch a breath, and finally I laugh so hard I wet myself, but that only makes him laugh the louder. I was never afraid when he was throwing me. I knew that he would always be there to catch me.” She pushed her hair back. “Then one day he wasn’t. Men come and go. They lie, or die, or leave you. **A mountain is not a man, though, and a stone is a mountain’s daughter. I trust my father, and I trust my mules. I won’t fall.”** She put her hand on a jagged spur of rock, and got to her feet. “Best finish. We have a long way yet to go, and I can smell a storm.”_
> 
> **—A Feast for Crows - Alayne II**

In both cases, we are talking about ‘Snowy Mountains’, the Frostfangs and the Eyrie with the winter upon it. In both cases, a ‘Stone’ related person said to them that they are ‘Children of the Mountain’, Stonesnake and Mya Stone. In both cases the Mountain will never drop or let fall their children. That way, Jon, a motherless boy, finds a mother; and Sansa, under the disguise of Alayne Stone, finds a better father than the despicable Lord Baelish.  

One more connection between Jon and Sansa is the one related to Ghost. This connection appears in the same Sansa’s chapter in A Feast for Crows, Alayne II, previously mentioned, the one where she thought of Jon Snow for the first time in ages while descending from the Eyrie to the Gates of the Moon. And in Jon’s case, it appears in his last chapter in A Dance with Dragons, Jon XIII. Let’s see:

> _"Ser Sweetrobin,” Lord Robert said, and Alayne knew that she dare not wait for Mya to return. She helped the boy dismount, and hand in hand they walked out onto the bare stone saddle, their cloaks snapping and flapping behind them. All around was empty air and sky, the ground falling away sharply to either side. **There was ice underfoot, and broken stones just waiting to turn an ankle, and the wind was howling fiercely. It sounds like a wolf, thought Sansa. A ghost wolf, big as mountains.**_
> 
> **____—____ A Feast for Crows - Alayne II**

> _Outside the armory, Mully and the Flea stood shivering at guard. “Shouldn’t you be inside, out of this wind?” Jon asked.“That’d be sweet, m'lord,” said Fulk the Flea, **“but your wolf’s in no mood for company today.”**_
> 
> _Mully agreed. “He tried to take a bite o’ me, he did.”_
> 
> _“Ghost?” Jon was shocked.  
> _
> 
> _“Unless your lordship has some other white wolf, aye. I never seen him like this, m'lord. **All wild-like,**  I mean.”  
> _
> 
> _He was not wrong, as Jon discovered for himself when he slipped inside the doors. **The big white direwolf would not lie still. He paced from one end of the armory to the other, past the cold forge and back again. “Easy, Ghost,” Jon called. “Down. Sit, Ghost. Down.” Yet when he made to touch him, the wolf bristled and bared his teeth.**  It’s that bloody boar. Even in here, Ghost can smell his stink.  
> _
> 
> _**Mormont’s raven seemed agitated too. “Snow,” the bird kept screaming. “Snow, snow, snow.”**  Jon shooed him off, had Satin start a fire, then sent him out after Bowen Marsh and Othell Yarwyck. “Bring a flagon of mulled wine as well.”_
> 
> __[…]_ This was pointless, Jon thought. Pointless, fruitless, hopeless. “Thank you for your counsel, my lords.”_
> 
> _Satin helped them back into their cloaks. **As they walked through the armory, Ghost sniffed at them, his tail upraised and bristling.**_ _My brothers. The Night’s Watch needed leaders with the wisdom of Maester Aemon, the learning of Samwell Tarly, the courage of Qhorin Halfhand, the stubborn strength of the Old Bear, the compassion of Donal Noye. What it had instead was them._
> 
> _[…] When Wick Whittlestick slashed at his throat, the word turned into a grunt. Jon twisted from the knife, just enough so it barely grazed his skin. He cut me. When he put his hand to the side of his neck, blood welled between his fingers. “Why?”_
> 
> _“For the Watch.” Wick slashed at him again. This time Jon caught his wrist and bent his arm back until he dropped the dagger. The gangling steward backed away, his hands upraised as if to say, Not me, it was not me. Men were screaming. Jon reached for Longclaw, but his fingers had grown stiff and clumsy. Somehow he could not seem to get the sword free of its scabbard._
> 
> _Then Bowen Marsh stood there before him, tears running down his cheeks. “For the Watch.” He punched Jon in the belly. When he pulled his hand away, the dagger stayed where he had buried it._
> 
> _Jon fell to his knees. He found the dagger’s hilt and wrenched it free. In the cold night air the wound was smoking. **“Ghost,” he whispered.** Pain washed over him. Stick them with the pointy end. When the third dagger took him between the shoulder blades, he gave a grunt and fell face-first into the snow. He never felt the fourth knife. Only the cold…_
> 
> **____—____ A Dance with Dragons - Jon XIII**

These two passages could mean that Sansa was, in some way, hearing or sensing Ghost:  _ **“the wind was howling fiercely. It sounds like a wolf, thought Sansa. A ghost wolf, big as mountains”** ;_ as the direwolf was restless and anxious the day of Jon’s death:  **“Easy, Ghost,” Jon called. “Down. Sit, Ghost. Down.” Yet when he made to touch him, the wolf bristled and bared his teeth”**.And at the end of his chapter, Jon himself “whispered” his direwolf name, while dying.

So, with Jon’s death and the previous death of Lady, Sansa’s direwolf, we have two Stark kids incomplete. Throughout the books we can read many times that the direwolfs are part of the Stark kids. Sansa lost his direwolf and then Ghost lost Jon. Its fair to say that after that, Sansa and Jon will be a great complement for each other lost part.

Back to the seventh Sansa’s chapter of A Storm of Swords, now we have the intervention of Lord Baelish, who returned to the Eyrie that morning and helped Sansa to built her snow castle: 

> _Her bridges kept falling down. _ _ _[…]____ _The third time one collapsed on her, she cursed aloud and sat back in helpless frustration._
> 
> _“Pack the snow around a stick, Sansa.”  
> _
> 
> _She did not know how long he had been watching her, or when he had returned from the Vale. “A stick?” she asked.  
> _
> 
> _“That will give it strength enough to stand, I’d think,” Petyr said. “May I come into your castle, my lady?”  
> _
> 
> _Sansa was wary. “Don’t break it. Be …”  
> _
> 
> _“… gentle?” He smiled. “Winterfell has withstood fiercer enemies than me. It is Winterfell, is it not?”  
> _
> 
> _“Yes,” Sansa admitted.  
> _
> 
> _He walked along outside the walls. **“I used to dream of it, in those years after Cat went north with Eddard Stark. In my dreams it was ever a dark place, and cold.”**  
> _
> 
> _**“No. It was always warm, even when it snowed.**  Water from the hot springs is piped through the walls to warm them, and inside the glass gardens it was always like the hottest day of summer.” _
> 
> ____****—A Storm of Swords - Sansa VII** ** _ _ _ _

As we can see, Petyr has no love for Winterfell, because it reminds him that Ned Stark took Catelyn Tully away from him and went to Winterfelll with her. So, even if he says he is not a enemy of the seat of House Stark, probably he would have destroyed Winterfell with his own hands rather than help to rebuild it. 

And, contrary to Jon, who thinks that Winterfell belongs to Sansa by right, Petyr talk about the great castle of the north as a gift for Sansa, a gift he will get for her through a marriage with Harry the Heir: 

> _When Robert dies, Harry the Heir becomes Lord Harrold, Defender of the Vale and Lord of the Eyrie. Jon Arryn’s bannermen will never love me, nor our silly, shaking Robert, but they will love their Young Falcon… and when they come together for his wedding, and you come out with your long auburn hair, clad in a maiden’s cloak of white and grey with a direwolf emblazoned on the back … why, every knight in the Vale will pledge his sword to win you back your birthright. **So those are your gifts from me, my sweet Sansa… Harry, the Eyrie, and Winterfell.** That’s worth another kiss now, don’t you think?“_
> 
> **_—A Feast for Crows - Alayne II_ **

Again, Petyr is only a ‘pretender’, he will never be a true hero or a prince in Sansa’s story. Actually, I’m sure he plays the part of the monster or the savage giant. And he has no shame in express her true intentions, he asks Sansa to kiss him as a reward for his generous promise, just imagine what will he ask if he finally manages to give Winterfell to Sansa…

It is really sad that this beautiful passage of Sansa building a Winterfell of snow was interrupted by Petyr in a, to say the least, very disgusting way. I’m not talking about “his help” with the build of the castle, I’m talking about his forced kiss:

> _The Broken Tower was easier still. They made a tall tower together, kneeling side by side to roll it smooth, and when they’d raised it Sansa stuck her fingers through the top, grabbed a handful of snow, and flung it full in his face. Petyr yelped, as the snow slid down under his collar. “That was unchivalrously done, my lady.”_
> 
> _“As was bringing me here, when you swore to take me home.”  
> _
> 
> _She wondered where this courage had come from, to speak to him so frankly. **From Winterfell, she thought. I am stronger within the walls of Winterfell.**    
> _
> 
> _His face grew serious. “Yes, I played you false in that … and in one other thing as well.”_
> 
> _Sansa’s stomach was aflutter. “What other thing?”  
> _
> 
> _“I told you that nothing could please me more than to help you with your castle. I fear that was a lie as well. Something else would please me more.” He stepped closer. “This._
> 
> _"Sansa tried to step back, but he pulled her into his arms and suddenly he was kissing her. Feebly, she tried to squirm, but only succeeded in pressing herself more tightly against him. His mouth was on hers, swallowing her words. He tasted of mint. For half a heartbeat she yielded to his kiss … before she turned her face away and wrenched free. "What are you doing?”  
> _
> 
> _Petyr straightened his cloak. “Kissing a snow maid.”  
> _
> 
> _“You’re supposed to kiss her.” Sansa glanced up at Lysa’s balcony, but it was empty now. “Your lady wife.”  
> _
> 
> _“I do. Lysa has no cause for complaint.” He smiled. “I wish you could see yourself, my lady. You are so beautiful. You’re crusted over with snow like some little bear cub, but your face is flushed and you can scarcely breathe. How long have you been out here? You must be very cold. Let me warm you, Sansa. Take off those gloves, give me your hands.”  
> _
> 
> _“I won’t.” He sounded almost like Marillion, the night he’d gotten so drunk at the wedding. Only this time Lothor Brune would not appear to save her; Ser Lothor was Petyr’s man. “You shouldn’t kiss me. I might have been your own daughter …”  
> _
> 
> _“Might have been,” he admitted, with a rueful smile. “But you’re not, are you? You are Eddard Stark’s daughter, and Cat’s. But I think you might be even more beautiful than your mother was, when she was your age.”  
> _
> 
> _“Petyr, please.” Her voice sounded so weak. “Please …”_
> 
> **— A Storm of Swords - Sansa VII**

In fact, it is horribly sad that, in a moment when Sansa realized that the memory of her home and the symbolic act of rebuilding it, make her stronger and courageous to face the truth and the reality:  **“ _From Winterfell, she thought. I am stronger within the walls of Winterfell”_** , she is attacked by a man who pretend to be her own father by kissing her in the mouth. And the fact that Petyr used the same words of another Sansa’s molester that attacked her not so long ago, just make the situation even worse. And it seems like Petyr would have continued with their actions if Robert would not have appeared.

(I felt the same when in Game of Thrones S5 Sansa said:  ** _“I am Sansa Stark of Winterfell. This is my home. And you can’t frighten me.”_**  And immediately after that… Well, you all know what happened to her. I will always hate the show for that.)

But, when Sansa actually returns to Winterfell, I think the walls of their home will give her much more strength and courage than her snow castle built in the Eyrie, and she will be able not only to hit Petyr in the face with a handful of snow, but slay him and put his head atop of Winterfell’s walls, just as the prophecy of the Ghost of High Heart says:  ** _“I dreamt that maid again, slaying a savage giant in a castle built of snow”_**. And the fact that she already hit Petyr’s face with a “handful of snow”, makes me think about Jon Snow punching him in the face with his bare hands over and over and over again. That would be really sweet.

And talking about Jon Snow, noted the difference between Petyr’s forced kiss and Sansa embracing the snowflakes in her face with these lines:  _ **Drifting snowflakes brushed her face as light as lover’s kisses, and melted on her cheeks. […] she turned her face up to the sky and closed her eyes. She could feel the snow on her lashes, taste it on her lips. It was the taste of Winterfell. The taste of innocence. The taste of dreams.**_  

So, it is very clear that Petyr Baelish is the principal obstacle in Sansa’s story. After all, due to Petyr’s actions, Catelyn’s song ended with Ned’s death and also Sansa’s dreams about songs were crushed with her father’s death. And that’s why the last prophecy of the Ghost of High Heart is very important for Sansa. 

As I said before, almost all the dreams of the Ghost of High Heart about Sansa and her family are sad prophecies that have been fulfilled, except the last one:  **“** _ **I dreamt that maid again, slaying a savage giant in a castle built of snow”**._  In this one, Sansa is in an advantageous position, and is the only prophecy that is not fulfilled yet in the books. And maybe this prophecy is the lucky twist in Sansa’s story, the turning point for Sansa’s song, that could be, in the end, a lucky song.  

And this lucky twist could be achieve by Sansa playing the Game of Thrones and removing Petyr out of the game just as he taught her how to do it:  _ **"In the game of thrones, even the humblest pieces can have wills of their own. Sometimes they refuse to make the moves you’ve planned for them”**._

So here I am, hoping for Sansa to be stronger and courageous within the walls of Winterfell and with the help of here unthought hero, prince, half brother,  ~~cousin~~ , Jon Snow, slay the savage giant that Petyr Baelish really is. 

Ah, what a long journey from the story of Jenny of Oldstones and her the Prince of Dragonflies to this point. From Catelyn words:  ** _“We’re all just songs in the end. If we are lucky._ _”_**  to the Ghost of High Heart’s prophesy:  **“** _ **I dreamt that maid again, slaying a savage giant in a castle built of snow”**._       

And in the end, I think Jon could be not only the Prince of Dragonflies for Sansa, he also could be the Prince Aemon the Dragonknight who loved Queen Naerys, his sister. Or just be Jon Snow, her brother,  ~~her cousin~~ , her family, the silent, unknown and unthought answer to Sansa’s hopes, with a little twist of luck at the end, just as Catelyn said.

And I’m going to finish this really long post saying this:  _Maybe Sansa’s own song is already being played even though Sansa cannot hear the music yet._

[Originally posted on Tumblr on Oct 11th, 2016](https://butterflies-dragons.tumblr.com/post/151643925209/were-all-just-songs-in-the-end-if-we-are-lucky)


End file.
